The United Nations' Millennium Summit in New York, attended by about 150 heads of state and governments earlier this month, pledged to make globalization a positive force for all the people of the world. It published a list of central values for 21st-century international relations. It also admitted Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific state of only 10,000 people, as its 189th member. But there was one glaring injustice amid all the lofty speeches, declarations and actions: the exclusion of Taiwan as a member.

Taiwan's exclusion is a violation of the U.N. Charter, because Taiwan has satisfied all the membership requirements of Article 4, according to which "membership in the U.N. is open to all other peace-loving states (i.e., other than the Charter members) which accept the obligations contained in the present Charter, and, in the judgment of the Organization, are able and willing to carry out these obligations."

First, the Republic of China has been a sovereign state since 1912. It has a territory 1,384 times bigger than that of Tuvalu, the U.N.'s newest member, and larger than almost half of the countries in the world; a population of 23 million, larger than the majority of the countries in the Asia-Pacific region; and a government that exercises sovereign control over its territory and residents.